Booker Goes to D.C. as Zuckerberg Money Follows Mayor

Oct. 30 (Bloomberg) -- Cory Booker joins the U.S. Senate
with one year to show New Jersey voters he can transition from
being mayor of Newark, where he charmed Wall Street into the
start of an economic and philanthropic revival.

The 44-year-old Democrat, who won an Oct. 16 special
election to complete the term of the late Frank Lautenberg, will
be sworn in tomorrow at the U.S. Capitol. He takes office amid
partisan fights over federal spending, with an aim to show a
record of accomplishment as he campaigns for a full term in
2014.

“It’s going to be kind of bewildering for him,” said Ross
Baker, a political science professor at Rutgers University in
New Brunswick, New Jersey. “He had his own corner grocery store
in Newark whereas here he’s basically going to be in competition
with 99 colleagues for media attention.”

Booker beat Republican Tea Party candidate Steven Lonegan
by 11 percentage points to become the state’s first black U.S.
Senator and return Democrats to a 55-45 majority. A rising star
in his party, Booker cast himself as a new kind of lawmaker who
would bring change to Washington.

His campaign seized on Lonegan’s support for Republican
politicians including Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, who he blamed
for this month’s 16-day partial government shutdown. Still,
Booker won by less than half the margin projected by polls in
August after Lonegan accused him of being more focused on
gaining the national spotlight than on New Jersey.

Rising Star

A Rhodes Scholar and Yale University-educated lawyer who
moved to Newark in 1996, Booker spoke at the 2012 Democratic
National Convention and helped lead its platform committee. He
gained national attention last year for saving a neighbor from a
fire and for living on food stamps for a week to show the
difficulty of relying on the government-assistance program.

His election victory capped a nine-week campaign during
which Booker raised $11.8 million through September, more than
seven times Lonegan’s $1.6 million. Booker accepted
contributions for four races at one time, which is permissible
by law, with donations of at least $10,000 from more than 150
people, including Christy R. Walton, the world’s richest woman;
Christopher Drake Heinz, an heir to the H.J. Heinz ketchup
fortune; and cosmetics company founder Bobbi Brown.

Special Schedule

The Senate contest ended calls from some Democrats for
Booker to challenge Republican Governor Chris Christie’s re-election bid on Nov. 5. Christie, who scheduled the special
Senate election three weeks before his own, led his Democratic
challenger, state Senator Barbara Buono, by 33 percentage points
in an Oct. 29 Quinnipiac University poll.

Booker, who was endorsed by President Barack Obama, and
Christie, who hasn’t ruled out running for president in 2016,
have worked together in New Jersey on education policies. The
two appeared together in 2010 on Oprah Winfrey’s television show
to announce a $100 million donation from Facebook Inc. co-founder Mark Zuckerberg for improving Newark’s schools.
Zuckerberg, 29, has contributed to both politicians’ campaigns.

On Oct. 28, Booker began a sort of farewell tour in Newark,
New Jersey’s most populous city. He joined Christie, 51, and
other politicians for a statue dedication. He then attended a
ribbon-cutting for a weight room at a local recreation center,
where he joked that he was “yesterday’s news” and introduced
acting mayor and City Council President Luis Quintana as the man
in charge.

One Senator

Standing beside his black city-owned SUV after the event,
Booker said he’s aware of moving to the bottom of the Senate’s
pecking order.

“In D.C., look, I’m one senator in 100 and I’m number 100
in seniority,” he said. “I might even be 101 in seniority. So
I know those challenges, but I’m going down there with the
experience of bringing people together in uncommon coalitions to
create uncommon progress.”

Julien Neals, Newark’s business administrator, said
Booker’s ability to bring disparate groups to a consensus drove
“99 percent” of the efforts that were successful in Newark
during his term.

“He’s going to do tremendously,” Neals said. “It’s his
understanding of the political process: how you can get
consensus and win people over with the right thing. He’s going
to continue to do this on a grand scale.”

Private Money

State Senator Ron Rice, a frequent Booker critic who was
deputy mayor for his predecessor, Sharpe James, said Booker is
leaving Newark without lasting fiscal improvement, and the city
doesn’t have enough police officers. He pointed to Booker’s
reliance on outside funding and support for charter schools, a
model pushed by financial industry figures as a way to force
change in under-performing classrooms.

“He’s part of the privatization movement,” Rice said in a
telephone interview. “He’s part of the hedge-fund people. He
can’t get away from them. If he lives to be 100 he’s not going
to be his own person.”

Booker’s efforts to add development and reduce crime in
Newark lured investments from Nicolas Berggruen, chairman of
Manhattan-based private-equity firm Berggruen Holdings Inc., who
is among the backers of Teachers Village, a $150 million
development downtown. Hedge-fund manager Bill Ackman, founder of
New York-based Pershing Square Group LLC, donated millions of
dollars for security cameras and other law-enforcement tools.

‘Creative Thinking’

Booker said such financial support has helped Newark fight
crime and poverty that took root after the 1967 race riots left
26 dead and led people to flee to the suburbs. He said he’ll
seek to expand such alliances across New Jersey.

“A lot of our progress here is because of public-private
partnerships and just innovative, creative thinking,” he said.
“I’m going to be working for the whole state, and so I’m going
to be focused on doing things right now, in New Jersey, and that
means spreading a lot of the innovative things we’ve been doing
here in Newark.”

Booker declined to say prior to taking office what
legislation he plans to introduce. Anti-poverty initiatives will
be one focus, he said. His election brings Senate Democrats one
seat closer to the 60-vote threshold needed to advance most
major legislation.

Party leaders typically help a newcomer like Booker with
committee assignments and legislation “that hopefully moves,”
said Jennifer Duffy, senior editor of the Cook Political Report,
a Washington-based nonpartisan newsletter that tracks federal
and state elections.

“He’ll get some help -- they’re well aware that he’s got
to run” for a full term, Duffy said.